Plan's aim: jobs back

Schumer proposal gives tax cuts to firms that undo offshoring

By Larry Rulison

Updated 9:14 pm, Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Photo: Selby Smith

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U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced a campaign to fight for Community Development Block Grant Program funding (CDBG) during a news conference Monday, June 23, 2014, in Troy N.Y. In order to eligible for CDBG funding a metropolitan city must have a population of at least 50,000. In 2012, Troy had a population of 50,072, but that number recently slipped to 49,946 ? just 54 residents short. (Selby Smith / Special to the Times Union) less

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced a campaign to fight for Community Development Block Grant Program funding (CDBG) during a news conference Monday, June 23, 2014, in Troy N.Y. In order to eligible for ... more

Photo: Selby Smith

Plan's aim: jobs back

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Albany

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer believes the time is ripe to convince New York state companies to bring jobs back to the United States.

Schumer on Wednesday said he has introduced a new bill in the Senate that would provide tax incentives to companies that make the move back home.

Schumer said that between 2008 and 2012, 11 Capital Region companies shifted 1,308 jobs overseas. Throughout the state during that same period, 13,536 jobs were moved overseas.

The bill, called the The Bring Jobs Home Act, would provide a tax credit for any company that moves a production line or business unit from overseas to the United States. The credit would be equal to 20 percent of the cost of the move, as long as the move resulted in a net increase in the number of the company's U.S. employees.

Schumer said his bill would also close a loophole that allows companies to take a tax deduction for the business expenses related to moving jobs overseas.

"That's disgraceful," Schumer said. He says now is the perfect time to convince U.S. firms to bring jobs back to the U.S. as labor prices in Asia rise and energy prices drop domestically. "The good news is, they want to bring them back," Schumer said. "New York state is much more competitive than it was before."

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Schumer said he didn't want to single out any employers in the Capital Region that have been moving jobs overseas, but the figures his office compiled were based on data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Trade Adjustment Assistance program that helps workers displaced when companies offshore jobs.

A search of those files by the Times Union shows that the Capital Region has weathered the offshoring trend much better than other parts of upstate.

Examples of local offshoring include Albany International Corp.'s move of its corrugator belt production line to Mexico in 2011, which resulted in a loss of 28 jobs. However, it's unlikely that those jobs would ever return to the Capital Region since Albany International has since sold off its Menands facility and moved its headquarters to New Hampshire.

Many of the jobs sent abroad from the Capital Region were in publishing and insurance, according to a Times Union search of the Labor Department database. Not included in the data compiled by Schumer's office are 200 jobs being lost with the closure of the General Electric Co. capacitor plant in Fort Edward. GE announced the closure last year, saying the jobs are being sent to Florida.

A petition filed this year with the Labor Department says the Fort Edward plant is being closed mainly because GE's locomotive unit started buying capacitors from a manufacturer in China three years ago. That followed a 2008 decision to outsource some of the plant's operations to France, the petition notes.